In the art, there are various ways and means of actuating the head of a puppet. These range from coupling the puppet's head to a solid remotely actuable rod, such as in U.S. Pat. No. 1,608,134 to Michel; moving the head by hand as in a standard ventriloquist puppet; operating the head by traditional puppet strings; or using an internal control line as in Fosser, U.S. Pat. No. 3,391,485.
The present invention provides a novel and surprisingly lifelike range of motion using an extremely simple, inexpensive, and easily available mechanism: a bicycle hand-brake cable.
The puppet comprises a substantially solid body portion and a substantially solid head portion. The head portion is attached to the body portion flexibly as by means of a felt strip running between the back of the bottom of the head and the top of the back of the body. The felt strip corresponds in location to what would be the spine of the puppet. A passageway is formed from approximately the small of the back through the center of what would be the neck between the top of the torso and the bottom of the head. In this passageway, through the torso, is embedded in fixed fashion a flexible sheath of a bicycle brake cable assembly. Running through the sheath is the brake cable itself. Brake cables generally come equipped with a tab or toggle for attachment to a handlebar mounted brake-actuating handle. This toggle is located distal to the puppet at the outside of the sheath and the cable has sufficient length to permit the toggle to travel towards and away from the end of the sheath. The untoggled end of the cable is embedded in the head of the puppet. The cable may be rotated about its longitudinal axis causing horizontal rotation of the puppet's head; i.e. side to side as in shaking the head "no". The toggle at the distal end of the cable facilitates such rotation. The cable can also be slid axially in and out of the sheath which causes vertical nodding of the puppet's head. The felt strip permits horizontal and vertical motion of the head while imparting a certain angularity to some of the motions, which results in a slightly tilted head, resulting in a surprisingly lifelike, expressive and cute appearance to the motion of the puppet's head.
It is the object of this invention to provide a lifelike and very appealing puppet having a novel and appealing animation of the head, remotely actuable by an operator, while the puppet is perched on the operator's shoulder. It is a further object of this invention that the puppet be easily fabricable using readily available, off-the-shelf, inexpensive parts such as a bicycle brake cable. It is a further object of the invention that the puppet be sturdy, simple and reliable in construction and operation to provide durability and quality.